Sunday, April 11, 2010

I had gotten tired of lugging around a bag for diapers and sippy cups and another one for my own items. I decided I needed a roomy bag with lots of pockets. So here it is...

First of all, I'm using a sturdy canvas fabric (from IKEA) so that I don't need to bother with interfacing to strengthen the material. I suggest reading through the entire tutorial before getting started.

Print out the pattern, piecing it together matching up the labeled cross-hairs (pattern pages will slightly overlap). Place the pattern on the fold of your fabric and cut one piece from your outer fabric and one piece from a coordinating liner fabric. You'll also need a rectangle for the inner pockets measuring about 30" x 8". And you'll need a strip measuring 8" x 2" for the closure ribbon.

Now to prepare the pockets... If you have a serger, serge the long edge of the pocket piece that you would like to become the top of the pocket, then fold the edge in about an inch and press. If you don't have access to a serger, just fold the edge over twice to enclose the raw edge. Then topstitch to hold the edge in place.

Now take your liner fabric and mark a line on the right side about 3 inches from the base (the mark will be covered by the pocket).

Then line up the long, raw edge of the pocket along the underside of the line, with right sides together. I'm pretty sure that'll only make sense after looking at the photo below.

Pin and sew about 1/4 inch from the edge of the raw pocket edge.

Then fold the pocket up against the liner fabric and press along the fold. Then topstitch just over 1/4 inch from the fold, to enclose that raw edge.

Now your liner fabric should look like this:

Use chalk to mark lines where you would like pockets. (I usually make about four or five large pockets and one narrow pocket to hold a pen or pencil.)

Now fold the liner piece in half with right sides facing each other. Sew the side seam with about 1/2" seam allowance. Repeat for the outer piece. Now fold the pieces as in the picture below and press the seams open.

Now sew the bottom of the outer fabric, leaving a 1/2" seam allowance. When you sew the bottom of the liner fabric, leave a large hole for turning the bag later.

Open the corners of the outer fabric and press flat.

Mark a line perpendicular to the bottom seam about 1.5" away from the corner. Repeat for the other corner.

Sew along the line at both corners.

Trim.

Repeat for the corners of the liner.

Now to prepare the closure strap... press the material in half lengthwise, wrong sides together. Turn in the raw edges to the fold and press closed. Top stitch along the edges. (For more specific directions and photos of the making of the strap, see the strap-making portion of my "Nothing-to-it Tote" tutorial.)

Pin the strap to the right side of the outer fabric, at the back seam, as seen below.

Turn the liner right-side out.

Place the liner fabric inside the outer fabric, so that right sides are together.

Line up and pin the inner and outer fabric. Sew all around the edge, reinforcing over the closure strap.

Clip around all curves and trim strap corners.

Turn right-side out through the whole in the lining, and stuff the lining into the outer fabric. Press.

Stuff the liner into the outer fabric and press.

Topstitch around the edge and tie the straps together.

Attach a big funky button, hand-sew the opening in the liner closed and you're done!!

Enjoy!

Hopefully I'll have time to post a tutorial for the matching diaper case soon!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

How cute is this toy cake?!? As I was making it, my kids could barely wait to get their hands on the finished product. It's just the right size to fit their little toy plates and saucers. I saw something similar on Etsy and decided to try one myself. I didn't use a pattern or tutorial, but it's pretty self-explanatory. There's not only one way to make this little cake, but I'll let you know how I did it.

You'll need felt for the icing (I used white) and felt for the cake (I used brown for chocolate). And a little for decorations, too. Cut two circles the size you would like your finished cake to be - one from the icing color and one from the cake color. I found a plastic lid about 4.5" in diameter to use as a template.

Now cut both circles into 6 even sectors. These will form the tops and bottoms of each cake slice. Decide how tall you want your cake to be and cut a few strips of felt that width (I cut mine 1.25" wide).

If you want to decorate with some sort of flower on the top of each pie piece, you'd best do that before you begin putting together the slices of cake. Mark each icing wedge in the center so that your flowers will be evenly spaced when your pie is put together. When I first started, I decided to use little flower-shaped buttons as the decoration (see photo above), but decided that it didn't look authentic enough. It's easier, though, so if you find buttons you think would work, you can save yourself some time. If you want to go for the felt flowers, here's how to do it...

Cut six identical pieces, similar to the one below, of gradually decreasing scallops (my pieces were about 4" long, and 1/2" at the first and widest curve). Also, cut six identical leaf shape for the base of the rose (I didn't include a separate picture of the cut leaf, but you can see the shape from the pictures with the completed rose.)

Before you begin, double thread a needle with coordinating colored thread. Grab one of your scalloped pieces and start rolling it at the small end.

It should look something like this.

Now hold it so that your facing the flat end. Put the needle through the center, just catching the loose end of the felt.

Pull the needle through and catch the loop of your thread, passing the needle through the loop before pulling tight.

Make the same stitch perpendicular to your first stitch (as in the picture below), and then again diagonally both ways.

And when your done, the base of your rose should come together nicely. Now stitch through the leave to attach the rose and leaf to one of the icing-colored cake sectors, which you previously marked for this purpose. Repeat for the remaining 5 roses.

Now it's time to start stitching our cake slices together. Measure each cake piece from the strips that you cut. I used a simple running stitch, being sure to use the color thread that would be most visible. (So I used white to stitch all sides that included white felt, but brown thread where I was attaching two brown pieces.)

Before you close your last edge, stuff the cake.

Now cut narrow strips for the icing edge decoration. Mine measured about 4" by 1/4". Start by folding down and stitching the edge. Then place stitches at random angles and slightly random distances across the length of the felt strip.

Then pull the string so that the length of scrunched-up felt is the length that you need to fit across the arc of the cake slice.

Stitch the icing strip to the cake... two strips per cake (along the upper arc and the lower arc).

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

One of the neighbor girls, who also babysits the kids from time to time, recently turned 18. She's studying art in school, so I decided to make her a paintbrush roll to match the bag that I made her for Christmas. (A tutorial for that coming soon!) This is so simple, but makes a great gift for the artist in your life.

To get started, cut out your fabric. I'll let you know what I used, but you can tweak these measurements to fit the brushes, pens, or colored pencils that you're wanting to tote around. You'll need a piece of outer fabric (mine is the blue patterned fabric below), a piece of inner fabric, and three pieces of fabric for the three layers of pockets. In addition, you'll need ribbon to tie it closed (or you can make a ribbon from your fabric).

Fold down the top edge of each pocket piece about an inch and press. Then fold the raw edge in, and press again. Top-stitch in place. If you have a fancy stitch option on your machine, you can spice up your top-stitch that way.

Note: You might be tempted, as I was, to cut your fabric twice as long and just fold it in half to make for a smoother look, but you end up with twice as many layers at the bottom of your project, which makes it hard to roll.

Now lay the pockets in place on the inner fabric piece and mark a line down the center with chalk. Mark out from the center where you would like to sew pockets. I made even-width pockets of 1.5 inches, but you can make wider and narrower pockets, depending on what you're planning to stow in them.

Now pin the sides and between some of the pockets to hold it in place while sewing. Sew along each mark, reinforcing at the tops of each pocket.

Now it's time to layer your fabrics to sew them all together.

First comes your inner fabric with the pockets attached.

Next, place your ribbon, folded in half, with the fold hanging off the edge, and the open ends toward the inside of the project (you'll probably need to fold the ribbon over to assure that it doesn't get too close to the edge of the fabric, where you're about to sew 1/2 inch from the edge).

Now place the outer fabric on top, right side facing down. Stitch, leaving a space at the top to turn the project inside-out. Trim your corners before you turn it inside out.

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About Me

I grew up in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania... a suburb of Allentown. Just months after graduating from Penn State, I left for Tóalmás, Hungary for what I expected to be a one-year missions trip... that was 1993. Here I am nearly two decades later... I married my best friend in 2003 and we have since had two children, Benjamin Joel "Beni" (born in 2006) and Emilia Mae "Lia" (born in 2008)... it is a joy to be a part of their lives!

The Craft Room
Early in 2009 my Husband, Andris, who is good at anything that he puts his mind to, agreed to make a room in our unfinished attic for me to use for crafts and sewing (maybe it was always tripping over the piles of craft supplies in the living room!) Our good friend, Hentes, helped quite a bit and the result is a great room for designing and creating... and biweekly Craft Nights with the girls. Thanks, hon!